Hamilton P. Bee

Hamilton Prioleau Bee (22 July 1822-3 October 1897) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Biography
Hamilton P. Bee was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, the brother of Barnard E. Bee. The family moved to Texas in 1836, and he became involved in the politics of the Republic of Texas while he was young. In 1846, he was elected to the Texas Senate, and he served in the US Army during the Mexican-American War. He moved to Laredo after the war, and he won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1848, serving as Speaker of the House from 1855 to 1857. When the American Civil War broke out, the Bee brothers became Confederate States Army generals, and his brother was killed at Bull Run at the start of the war in 1861. He commanded Texas militia forces in defense of Brownsville in November 1863, and he was forced to surrender the city to Nathaniel P. Banks' Union army. In 1864, he served under Richard Taylor during the Red River Campaign on the Louisiana-Texas border, and he was twice unhorsed at Pleasant Hill and lightly wounded. After the war, he moved to Saltillo in Mexico, living in exile until 1876, by which time the Democrats had regained control of the state legislature. He became a lawyer, and he died in San Antonio in 1897 at the age of 75.